Any Way The Wind Blows
Our hotter sky churns differently now.
Many readers are familiar that ocean currents, particularly the AMOC, which not only moves heat around but also stirs up nutrients between deep and shallow waters, are among the urgent climate tipping points we’re watching. Wind systems are the currents of the sky, likewise important and likewise changing.
Because temperature and moisture dominate a lot of climate systems, scientists have focussed on them enough to provide us with a pretty thorough understanding. Winds have received less attention, so that understanding is less complete. Scientists trying to assemble more robust wind models note that there’s a lot of available data but insufficient available analysis. Since winds at the storm force level can be so dangerous, most of the attention goes to them, and trend modelling of winds below 60 kph (37 mph) isn’t advancing much. We’ve already seen some wind changes that had big impacts, so what we don’t know can definitely hurt us. Here’s some of what we know thus far.
Overall, global average wind speeds appear to be slowing down over the long term. Call it Global Stilling. Between 1978 and 2010, recorded winds declined by an average of 2.3% per decade. This decline isn’t steady, though –– average wind speed actually ticked up from 11.27 km/h (7 mph) to 11.9 km/h (7.4 mph) in the decade…
